This Horror Story Will Remind You to Always Clean Your Makeup Spoolie

The thought of having to clean your makeup brushes is off-putting because didn't you just wash them a few days ago? But once you read this woman's story, you'll be motivated to thoroughly cleanse all your brushes, especially your spoolies, every week.

Katie Wright, in a Twitter post that has since gone viral, said that one day she had a large painful bump along her eyebrow area. She thought it was a regular cystic pimple so she popped it. But "within an hour, my entire face swelled up and HURT. It felt like something was going to burst out of my skin. I went to the emergency room and they said it was a very serious case of Cellulitis, which is a version of a Staph infection, but instead of having a head like [a] Staph, it affects the deeper cellular tissues with no main source to attack. Since it was on my face, there was a huge risk of it spreading to my brain or my eyes, causing me to go blind," she explained.

Luckily, Katie's infection is already healing. She suspects the main cause of the infection was her dirty eyebrow spoolie: "As someone who cleans my brushes at least once a week, I can't believe I made the mistake of overlooking my pencil spoolie."

And while all skin experts don't advise picking at your pimples, this is one case where it "paid off." Katie shared, "It was a blessing in disguise that I exposed it because if I had left it alone, it could've unknowingly spread internally to my brain and eyes... That would've been even more of a medical tragedy instead of a skin lesion."

Now that you know why you should take brush cleaning seriously and the dangers that could happen if you don't, here's a simple way to wash your eyebrow or mascara spoolies. [Via Bustle]

1. Wet the spoolie in cold water.

2. Rub brush shampoo, soap, or baby shampoo onto the tool until you can see the color coming off. Be gentle with it to avoid disrupting its natural shape.

3. Rinse it and squeeze all the makeup out.

4. Let it air dry on a clean towel overnight.

*This story originally appeared on Cosmo.ph. Minor edits have been made by the Preview.ph editors.